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Edited on Sat Aug-13-05 06:13 PM by DanCa
U.S. science research may lose place on cutting edge
Friday, August 12, 2005
By Sharon Begley, The Wall Street Journal
News last week that scientists in South Korea had cloned a dog --
something no other researchers had ever managed -- was more
surprising for the what than the who. Dogs are notoriously tough to
clone, so the achievement was unexpected. But the scientists who
pulled it off were exactly the ones the smart money had bet on.
In 2004, they cloned the first human embryo and extracted stem cells
from it; earlier this year they became the first to create new lines
of embryonic stem cells containing the DNA of patients with diseases
or injuries, the first step toward cellular therapies custom
tailored to a patient's genetic profile. The fact that Seoul has become Cloning and Stem Cell Central has ratcheted up a concern that has been growing for years: Is the U.S. losing its decades-long pre-eminence in science? And if so, does it matter? The numbers suggest that the answer to the first question is yes. According to theNational Science Foundation, the U.S. share of
scientific and engineering papers (a measure of how much knowledge
researchers are generating) has been on a steady decline. From
almost 40 percent in 1988, the U.S. share had fallen to 30 percent
by 2001 (the last year for which the count is in), and is likely
even lower now. That reflects, in particular, the rising scientific
output of China, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. As recently as 1995, the U.S. was the top producer of scientific knowledge, with about 200,000 papers. Since then, Western Europe has
sprinted past, producing almost 230,000 papers in 2001. The U.S. was
stalled at 200,000. Asia graduates more science and engineering
Ph.D.s than the U.S. does; Europe graduates 50 percent more.
Unless you treat science the way the media do Olympics, with country-
by-country medal counts obscuring the inspiring achievements, it's
not obvious why the U.S.'s fall from dominance should cause concern,
at least for patients. Ill Americans benefit from the antipsychotic
drug Risperdal, invented in a lab in Belgium. The extract that
formed the basis for the cholesterol-lowering drug Mevacor emerged
from a lab in Spain. Americans don't need a passport to benefit from
either. That more smart people around the world are making more
discoveries "portends well for the future of all humankind," Alan
Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, argued in an editorial in Science.
"Do we have to trump the entire world?" he asked me
rhetorically. "Probably not. That more papers are coming from
outside the U.S. doesn't upset me nearly as much as the fact that
cutting-edge scientists are leaving because they can't do research
here" as a result of strict limits on human embryonic stem-cell
studies. (It is illegal to use federal money for research like the
Koreans', for example.) "This overlay of values onto research is a
very alarming development." That's the nub of it. It's one thing to lose pre-eminence, it's quite another to lose eminence, and that's where the U.S. is heading.
"Americans are rightfully proud of the research we do, but this is
not the only place really great science is being done these days,"
says Evan Snyder of the Burnham Institute, La Jolla, Calif., a
leader in stem-cell research. "Countries that never had a tradition
of cutting-edge biomedical research now have an entree as a result
of U.S. (stem-cell) policy. Americans are at a disadvantage in not
having the opportunity to develop the technical know-how."
One sign of how besieged he and others feel: Lab space financed with
private or state money for studies that can't be legally done with
federal money is called a "safe haven." Allowing a minority opinion to stifle research is only one symptom of politics undermining science. Some appointees to federal scientific advisory panels have been chosen for their ideology rather than their expertise; staffers with no research credentials alter the scientific (not only the policy) content of reports on climate change. Politicians' attacks on the science of evolution continue, even though "intelligent design" may make a fascinating lesson for a philosophy class, but is not biology.
"This anti-scientism couldn't be more damaging to young people
contemplating devoting their life to research," says neuroscientist
Ira Black, whose own stem-cell institute in New Jersey has been
stalled by political red tape. "The sense of opportunity that was
always predominant in the U.S. now lies elsewhere."
Since scientific innovation has long fueled economic growth, there
is a danger "that the U.S. will no longer be dominant in
innovation," says G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia
Institute of Technology and a member of the President's Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology. "A larger number of
international patents are being obtained overseas, R&D facilities
are moving overseas. If we are not innovating here, the economic
benefits will go elsewhere, too." An interesting battle will come when a lab in Singapore or Seoul or Britain uses embryonic stem cells to develop a therapy for diabetes or Parkinson's or heart disease. Its use in the U.S. would require approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Will opponents of stem-cell research demand that the FDA reject it and deprive patients of their only hope?
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